The North East Film Archive is one of a network of regional film archives established to collect, preserve and show film made in, or about the North East of England. Our collections are non-fiction, and date from the early 1900s to the present day, providing a rich record of life in the region over the 20th century. Many of our films are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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Fire at Clarence Works British Steel Chemicals August 23rd 1976
A Port Clarence chemical works turns combat zone for Cleveland County firefighters.
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Overview
On 23 August 1976, a huge pall of thick black smoke was heading towards Middlesbrough. On the north bank of the River Tees, a British Steel Chemicals tip coated in pitch had caught fire. Over 24 hours, eighty firefighters from Cleveland and Durham brigades battled the raging blaze, which threatened Port Clarence with devastation. An amateur filmmaker turned citizen journalist for this breaking news coup captured on celluloid. How did he get so close?
A grass fire had started one morning on the old Dorman Long site behind the Phillips Imperial oil terminal. The Evening Gazette reported that ‘within six hours, dozens of firemen were “minutes from a major disaster” as they struggled through foot deep lakes of burning pitch to protect storage tanks’ each containing 20,000 gallons of highly inflammable refined oil. Even the firefighters’ hoses were catching fire. A Teesside amateur and member of the Cleveland Cine Club, Peter Whitaker, captured incredible footage of the emergency along with the aftermath, a charred industrial landscape and pitch melted and solidified into black mountains by the intense heat.
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